Re: sensitive info requested by microsoft before you can create OneDrive account.

Hey – Microsoft has to pay for all that "free" OneDrive storage someway! Collecting, using, selling peoples information, sifting through all they upload and then placing ads in all related products and services is the method du jour. While I agree a few gigs aren't worth it, there are millions of consumers who can't resist something that's free. Wasn't it P. T. Barnum who said "There's a sucker born every minute"?

One Big Drive is a consolidated cloud storage company who started their site and services 3-4 weeks prior to Microsofts One Drive and has many of the same features. This is probably the biggest issue for Microsoft and their name choice. OneBigDrive.com will probably start litigation or sue Microsoft at some point if Microsoft doesn't buy them out first. They are a publicly traded company at PTPF so this may get interesting.

Re: sensitive info requested by microsoft before you can create OneDrive account.

Exactly! You might get a few GB of free cloud space, but Microsoft gets your details, your data, and literaly anything you put in there. That's why I back up my important stuff with my own 1TB NAS - over several years it's much cheaper than whatever OneDrive could offer me.

And if I need to share something with someone, I'd rather use web services like Filemail – they allow you to send any number of files up to 30GB each for free, no registration needed. Your data doesn't stay anywhere on their server, and you don't have to sign any 200-page long terms and conditions in order to use it.

Oh, and they're not US based. Considering everything that's been recently said about NSA, I'd suggest you all do the same.

As a user of other cloud storage services, I like the idea of leveraging a unified ecosystem like Microsoft is putting forth. Firstly, if they are able to seamlessly allow for a single customer interface in terms of how their data is stored, accessed and used, it almost renders the underlying platform obsolete. With Office 365, and OneDrive, you can theoretically work across any device on any platform, a huge advantage for mobile workers who want the flexibility of working from multiple locations without being tied to a single device. I can see employers loving this with the addition of Lync, all of a sudden you can leverage it for both BYOD and mobility strategy, but it could act as the cornerstone of a remote workforce strategy.

As InformationWeek Government readers were busy firming up their fiscal year 2015 budgets, we asked them to rate more than 30 IT initiatives in terms of importance and current leadership focus. No surprise, among more than 30 options, security is No. 1. After that, things get less predictable.